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100 years of the FTSE All-Share Index since 1917

The following chart plots the annual returns of the FTSE All-Share Index for the 100 years from 1917 to 2016.

The final bar in the chart plots the annual return for the index in 2016 (+12.3%). The Y-axis is truncated at +/-50% for legibility. In two years the returns were outside this bound: in 1974 the index fell 55%, and in 1975 the index rose 136%.

Over the 100 years since 1917 the average annual return for the index has been +7.0%.

The standard deviation has been 21.5, which means that for 66% of the years the return was between -14.5% and +28.5%.

The index saw positive returns in 65 of the 100 years.

The following chart is similar to the above, but ranks the returns in order of size.

The return of 12.3% in 2016 ranks 35th in order of annual returns for the index in the last 100 years.